Chapter 6 #2
The room is as stunning as the rest of the palace and the parts of the city we’ve seen so far, although I’m sure there has to be a less perfect underbelly to this place. A hideaway where they put the poor, the weak, the old. Those they consider worthless, who would tarnish this pristine image.
An ice chandelier hangs in the centre of the room, blue and purple light refracting down on the plush blue carpet, while a roaring fire with red and orange flames licks high in the hearth. I wonder at it. Somehow, the ice here must be spelled not to melt, no matter the heat it’s exposed to.
The instant the door is shut, Kyor spins me around so that I’m facing him. So that I can see the glint in his eyes.
I hold up a hand. A question burns in my chest – one that formed the instant we saw Isthyr and has only since deepened.
‘You swear you didn’t know about this place?’ I ask.
‘Rose.’ He tightens his grip around my waist and leans in. ‘I swear. I promise on my life, on your life, on Elska’s. I had no idea that this place ever existed.’
The fact that he would promise on Elska’s life reassures me, but I can’t forget that he’s bound.
Bound by a vow, hiding something vital that he can’t tell me.
It hurts to know that there will forever be secrets between us and that I will forever be questioning his sincerity.
Just as he should be questioning mine. After all, I hold secrets too: a brother, supposed to be dead – a life Kyor bears on his conscience.
But he swears he didn’t know of Isthyr, and in that, I find I believe him. I offer him the slightest nod of acceptance before sinking deeper into his warmth.
‘How have they kept this hidden?’ Kyor picks up the conversation again, wonder in his voice. ‘If my father knew about this place…’
He drifts into a silence that causes a deep churning in the pit of my belly.
I don’t need him to finish his sentence.
I already know how that story ends. If his father knew of this place, he would ransack it.
Destroy it. His father would strip Isthyr of everything he deemed valuable and not think twice about the lives he took in the process.
And then he’d burn the rest to the ground out of sheer spite.
But that’s not something I can say to Kyor.
It doesn’t matter how much he loves me; there’s still a tether to the king, to his father.
Or maybe it’s nothing so kind as a tether, but rather sharp claws that have him trapped instead.
After so many years of following orders blindly, of duty defining him, Kyor’s father’s talons are so deeply embedded into him that sometimes I worry that even Kyor doesn’t know where his free will starts and his father’s control ends.
Which is why he can’t know about William.
Why, no matter how much I love him, I can’t risk trusting him.
Not fully. Not with my brother’s life. Someone lied to his father to keep my brother safe, and I’ve seen firsthand what happens when Kyor learns people have gone against his father.
There’s a dead rebel leader in Galreck as evidence.
Thankfully, a distraction from my spiralling thoughts arises as Kyor presses a kiss to the delicate skin of my neck. ‘A princess?’ he purrs against me.
‘It would appear so.’
‘In that case I should honour you as one.’ He cups my chin, lifting it up before running his fingers down the side of my cheek and neck.
My eyes close at the tenderness of the touch, even as heat swells within me.
Yet as he tugs my top to the side, ready to continue his gentle exploration, he winces.
‘Your shoulder?’ I ask in concern.
‘Yeah.’ He rotates his arm a couple of times, stretching out his neck as he does. ‘Don’t think my muscles are a fan of the cold. But it’s fine. I’ve still got the Robbard’s.’
I try to keep the frown from forming on my face, but it’s difficult. The Robbard’s tincture is brewed from paparvy seeds – great painkillers, but horrifically addictive.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll just take a couple of drops,’ he says, reading my worry and planting his lips against mine.
His kiss feels like all the warmth I’ve been lacking since I arrived here.
Desperate to repay the touch, I remove my gloves, only for Kyor to turn rigid at the sight of the black patterns that snake up from my fingertips.
‘Rose?’ My name is the only word he uses to convey the thousand words I know are running through his head.
‘I guess it’s a sign that I’m the Issen princess,’ I tell him.
Though unlike every Issen I’ve seen, my markings are black rather than pearly white decorations that scatter across the men’s skin.
But then, I am the first woman I have seen marked.
Perhaps women have black markings, but conceal them?
I’ve already dismissed the idea that the colour of my pattern is dictated by my royal heritage.
I’ve seen William’s skin and his markings are just as white as the king’s.
I turn my wrist, once again examining the marks.
‘Does it hurt?’ Kyor asks.
‘No. I think I’ve felt it tingling a couple of times, but that’s it.’
He gently lifts both hands to his lips and kisses each fingertip – slowly, tenderly, his eyes locked on mine the entire time.
The action is restrained and far less intimate than other places he has kissed me.
Only somehow, it’s not. This is him, hand on his heart, accepting me for who I am.
For who my grandfather is. My heart yearns with the desire to break down the last walls between us – the ones built with bricks of lies and distrust – but how can I when blood vows separate us?
I’m still pushing away the simmering doubt when Kyor pulls me in closer, only for my stomach to growl loudly. The hares the wolves caught for us last night now feel a long, long way away.
‘I guess we should clean up,’ I suggest. ‘We hardly want to have our first meal with the king of the Issen covered in dirt.’
‘How about a bath?’ Kyor asks. ‘I can help you wash all those places that are hard to reach.’
‘And where might they be?’ I ask, my voice growing huskier with every breath.
‘Why don’t you run the bath, and I’ll show you.’
The romantic idea is cut short, not by the size of the bath but by the temperature of the water. The Issen’s inability to feel the cold clearly extends to bathing, though there is a small log burner beneath the tub. I bathe as fast as I have ever done.
‘Come on, you need to get washed up too,’ I say, pulling him off the bed by his good arm. Still, it doesn’t stop him pulling back so that I topple on top of him, my lips landing innocently on his.
‘Get clean first.’ I laugh. ‘Go on, bathe. You smell as bad as Elska.’
‘I’ll tell her you said that,’ he shoots back, but he releases me and pulls off his top.
It doesn’t even matter that he’s got more than a light layer of grime covering his skin.
The sight of him topless is enough to have me drooling, and the desire to run my hand over the hard muscles of his stomach is almost dizzying.
The feelings only intensify as he reaches for the button on his trousers.
I squeeze my eyes closed but then can’t help peeking one eye open by a millimetre. It’s just enough to see the smirk on his lips as he drops his trousers and underwear. Then he turns infuriatingly slowly and walks buck naked – and with admirable confidence – towards the bathroom.
Only when he is well and truly out of sight do I open my eyes fully. The Gods help me. Him like that and a bed like this? I don’t stand a chance.
Alone now, I can’t stop my whirring thoughts. How can it be that I’m a princess? My mind can’t accept this new truth. For so long, I was nothing more than a slum rat, so to try to shove royalty into my sense of self … it’s impossible.
More questions reel in my mind. Questions of my mother and how the fuck she ended up being raised by Dinah. What happened to her? Was she cast out of here? As a child? It seems madness to contemplate it, but I must tread carefully with my questions, even though I’m bursting with them.
Kyor strides out of the bathroom entirely naked.
The sight is enough to make my jaw drop, and the beauty of the room fades in comparison to him.
Water glistens as it trickles down his chest and arms, every inch of him taut with muscle.
That heat that I felt earlier returns with a new sense of urgency.
It was hard enough waiting when he was covered in dirt and needed a wash, but like this…
My pulse hitches.